I guess he says that because it must
have been scary for them meeting someone who they thought was dead!

But it is more than that. Jesus offers
us peace.

Earlier, in
John’s gospel, Jesus has said, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”

And now he
rises from the dead and the first thing that he says to them is ‘Peace be with
you’.

Virtually
every book in the New Testament begins in the same way. Whether it was Paul or
Peter or John, they begin by saying something along the lines, “Grace to you
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”.

This is not a
platitude. This is a promise. God gives those who put their trust in Jesus
Christ the gift of peace.

1. It is
the gift of peace that comes with his presence.

The peace that Jesus gives is not the
peace that comes from relaxation exercises, from getting our breathing right,
from yoga or whatever. Of course, those things can quieten us down inside, can
bring us peace, but only by allowing us to push out all the other anxious
thoughts and centring us in on ourselves. We may be at peace, but it can be a false
peace. The fire is still raging through the house in which we are sitting.

The peace that Jesus offers is the
peace that comes from his presence, the presence of the Son of God, the one who
was there in the beginning, the one who will be there in the end. He comes to
us, not in the same way that he came to Mary or the first Jesus followers or to
Thomas. He comes to us through the presence of his Spirit. He knows us. He loves
us – delights in us – he, as we see in these verses, sends us. We are part of
his team. He is with us.

And this is the peace that comes from
knowing that someone is there who is bigger than all the troubles, than all the
fires that we face. And we may not know how or we may not understand his timing,
but we trust him that he can make it all right.

It is a bit like when a small child
falls over and grazes his knee. It hurts and he cries. And then mum comes and
picks him up, and even though the knee still hurts just the same, he stops crying.
Why? Because mum is there, and she can make it all right.

And there is stuff, however adult or
big you are, that is still far bigger than us. Disaster, sickness and death to name
just three!

And of course there is the peace that
comes from ignoring them.

But there is a bigger peace that
comes from entrusting ourselves into the arms of the Son of God, who is
actually bigger than them – and who can sort it out.

And we need to hear that as we face
this coronavirus. The words that keep coming back to me at this current time are
words that come from an English mystic who lived in the 14th century,
Julian of Norwich. She wrote, 'All shall be well, and all shall be well and all
manner of thing shall be well.'

That is not wishful thinking.

It is based on the promises of God,
that nothing can separate us from his love, and that God works all things for
good for those who love him. And it is based on the promise of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God himself, who said, ‘I will be with you always, even to the end
of the age’.

So the first reason we have peace is
because of his presence with us

2. The second reason we have peace is
because Jesus reassures us that he has conquered death.

It is hard to believe in the
resurrection of Jesus. It is not the sort of thing that happens.

We may believe because of experience

There is an old song that goes:

“He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus
lives today
He walks with me and talks with me
Along life's narrow way
He lives, He lives, Salvation to impart
You ask me how I know He lives?
He lives within my heart”

The problem with that is that it is
easy to doubt our experience

There may be times when you experience
the risen Jesus ‘living in your heart’, but there will also be times when you
do not experience him.

But our faith depends on more than
our experience.

We have good reasons for believing that
Jesus rose from the dead

John has already told us about the empty
tomb and the folded grave clothes.

Now, in verse 20, we are told that
when Jesus first appeared to his followers, “he showed them his hands and his
side”.

He shows them the marks of the nails
in his hands, the mark of the spear in his side.

He is not showing off. It is not his
new party trick – what can you see through my hands!

He is showing them that it is him,
that he really was dead, and that he is now alive.

And he does the same for Thomas: “Put
your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.”
(John 20:27)

And there is a pattern in John 20:

Mary saw the risen Jesus and said to
the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’

The disciples saw the risen Jesus and
said to Thomas, ‘We have seen the Lord’

Thomas says, ‘Unless I see, I will not
believe’. And he then sees the risen Jesus.

We can believe, not just because of
our own experience – although I hope that if not today then tomorrow, you will
know the risen Jesus living in your heart - but because they saw the
risen Jesus, they touched his sides and put their fingers in his marks.

And that conviction that Jesus rose
from the dead will bring us peace.

Death, the final big bad guy, has
been conquered, and Jesus is alive. All will be well.

3. It is the gift of peace which comes
from knowing that we are OK with God

Jesus says, ‘As the Father has
sent me, so I send you’. (John 20:21)

And then,
having given them the Holy Spirit, he tells them that they are to forgive
people.

That is fascinating,
and it is something that we, the people of God, need to hear.

When the
risen Jesus sends the disciples in the power of Holy Spirit, the first thing he
tells them to do is not to heal the sick or raise the dead or feed the hungry
or right wrongs or save the planet.

He tells them
that they are to forgive sins.

Because we
have the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus with us, we have the authority, as
the people of God, to forgive sins

We have the
authority to say to anybody who turns to Jesus, who receives Jesus, that their
sins are forgiven – that they are OK with God.

The Patriarch
recently addressed his pastors and told them that when people come to confession,
their task at that moment is not to give people spiritual direction, not to be
their counsellors – but simply to listen and to declare the forgiveness of God.

In this
service, after we confess that we have sinned, I declare to you that your sins
are forgiven.

I’m telling
you that whatever you have done, however many times you have done it, however
much you have betrayed God and rebelled against his word, however many times
you have gone your own way and put your trust in yourself, however much you
have messed yourself and others and creation up – that if you turn to Christ
and confess that he is right and you are wrong – then you are forgiven.

You are OK
with God.

So, you don’t
need to tiptoe around God, you don’t need to hide from him, you don’t need to
pretend that he doesn’t exist.

You don’t need
to earn forgiveness by beating yourself up, or by trying to do good things to
make up for the bad things.

You don’t
need to see the bad stuff that happens to you as his punishment of you.

If you are
prepared to believe him and his word, then you are forgiven, you are accepted,
you are beloved.

Why is that
so important? Why is it even more important than feeding the hungry?

It is because
it is what Jesus came to do: he came to die to take away the sins of the world.

It is because
God created each person for communion, for intimacy with him, and to be part of
his family

It is because
people who are at peace with him are discovering how they can be at peace with
themselves and how they can be at peace with each other.

Then they will
– in the right way and for the right reason – feed the hungry, save the planet,
and right wrongs.

Jesus comes
to bring peace

I pray that
you will receive him today – either for the first time or the 178th
time. It doesn’t matter.

His gift for
you is peace

·the peace that comes because he is with us, and
he is bigger than anything that we face

·the peace that comes from knowing that he rose from
the dead and death has been defeated

·the peace that comes from knowing that you are forgiven,
you are accepted, you are beloved and you are part of the family of God

·the peace that comes from knowing that, whatever
happens to us and to those we love, all will be well

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